Day Two/Orientation


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Europe » Italy » Tuscany » Florence
January 20th 2009
Published: March 18th 2009
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Since the girls and I have no idea when someone from our school will be coming to get us we wake up early after a few short hours of sleep in our hotel so we can be sure we get to eat breakfast. We all got ready it what seemed like record time. We pile all the luggage neatly by the door so if someone comes during breakfast we'll be all set to go. We go downstairs for breakfast which starts at 7am and find no signs of breakfast being served anywhere. When we asked the desk clerk where breakfast was he informed us that breakfast didn't begin for another hour. We realize we set our alarm for the wrong time! This helps explain why it's still dark outside. With nothing to do the girls and I decided to take a walk but made sure to stay close to the hotel so we wouldn't get lost. When we came back for breakfast we were pleased to see the selection available. Cereal, Cornetti (which are like croissants), milk, bread, yogurt, and fruit. We probably overindulged a little but since we were unsure when we'd be able to eat next, we had no problem filling our bellies. We went back up to our room and received a phone call from Nienke (the coordinator from school) saying she would be coming to pick us up.

When she arrived we took two cabs to our apartment where we dropped off all of our stuff and then went to get a cappuccino before we headed to orientation. While we sipped our morning drinks we talked about how different drinking coffee in the morning was in Italy versus the United States. There really is no such thing as coffee "to-go". Nobody swings by a "drive-thru" Starbucks in the morning and gets their 'Mocha-Frappe whatever' before they start their day. The few people who chose to walk with coffee "to-go" in Italy are often stared at and questioned "what do you have going on that you're SO busy you can't stop and drink your coffee for four minutes in the morning?" Nienke said that if you don't have the four minutes, you MAKE the four minutes. Hearing this made me realize how many things about Italian culture I would be opened up to, one of the first being that their culture is more slower paced than ours.

We drove to a Villa for orientation because the school didn't have the space to hold all the students and lunch. Getting to see the city for the first time during the day was amazing. I felt like a little kid in awe by everything I was taking in!

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